Idaho jobless rate continues to drop

March 25, 2012

Idaho employers increased payrolls slightly in February, driving the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate down a tenth of a point to 8 percent, the seventh straight monthly decline and the lowest rate since September 2009. Goods producers added jobs during a month when they normally scale back while the increase in the service sector jobs fell just short of the average over the last five years. Businesses hired over 11,000 new workers for the third month in a row, exceeding February hires by 2,000 to 3,000 for the previous three Februarys, and nearly half of the new hires were for new jobs created since January. Another 2,100 more workers were on the job in February, pushing total employment to nearly 715,000 and marking the eighth month in a row employment has risen. The number of new jobs created in February was less than 1,000 short of the average during the expansion that led up to the recent recession. Total jobs have run ahead of year-earlier levels for 12 of the last 14 months and were over 1 percent higher in both January and February. Although jobs remain at 2005-2006 level, gains over the last year clearly indicate Idaho’s economy is recovering from the worst recession since World War II. Total jobs ran below the previous year for 30 months in a row during and after the recession. The decline in the jobless rate when the national rate held steady in February at 8.3 percent also dropped the number of workers without jobs below 62,500, the fewest unemployed Idahoans in 28 months. February marked the 125th month – over 10 years – that Idaho’s unemployment rate has been lower than the national rate. Just over 35,000 workers were paid $35.3 million in state and federal unemployment benefits during February, a 20 percent decline from February 2010 when 44,500 jobless workers received $44.7 million in benefits. Idaho’s unemployment rate has fallen nearly a full percentage point since peaking at 8.9 percent during the final months of 2010, and the weekly payout of regular state benefits is running $1 million less than a year ago. Renewed optimism among workers about the prospects of finding work has increased the state labor force eight straight months to a record 777,000. The surge in the labor force – 10,000 since the beginning of 2011 – has increased competition for available jobs. According to The Conference Board, there were 3.6 unemployed workers for every posted job in February, up from 2.9 in December, but well below the five jobless workers per posted job in late 2009. Only 10 rural Idaho counties posted unemployment rates in double digits, down from 11 in January. Caldwell was the only city or metropolitan area in double digits at 10 percent. Forty of the 44 counties recorded lower rates in February than January and two were unchanged. Only Lewis County at a tenth and Boise County at three-tenths posted increases from the previous month. In Boundary County, the February, 2012, preliminary unemployment rate was 11.2-percent, down from 11.6-percent in January and 12.8-percent from February, 2011. Out of a local civilian labor force of 4,594, February found 4,0081 working and 513 unemployed. Adams County with the highest rate at 13.2 percent was down two full points from January. The lowest rate was 4.3 percent in Franklin County. Nine more counties had rates under 6 percent compared to just six counties under 6 percent in January.